The Mirror Isn't Glass

She learns early to fear her reflection.

Not for what it shows,

but for how much it lies.

Some days it stretches her.

Some days it shrinks her.

Some days it makes her disappear entirely.

Still, she looks—

because not looking feels like failing,

and she has spent her whole life

trying not to fail

at being someone she never chose to be.

There are mornings

when her body feels borrowed,

stitched together from apologies

she never meant to make.

She tugs at her shirt,

at her skin,

at her breath—

everything feels too tight,

or too loud,

or simply wrong.

And when someone says,

"You're beautiful,"

she swallows the words

like something sharp,

something that scrapes all the way down.

If it were true,

wouldn't she feel it?

Wouldn't she—

at least once—

recognize herself?

But then comes the moment.

The breaking point.

The night she stands in front of the mirror

with tears she didn't mean to shed,

whispering,

"Why can't I see what they see?"

And the silence finally answers her:

not with cruelty

but with exhaustion.

Because she is tired.

So tired.

Of fighting a war

no one else can see.